1. Success and fail factors for the practical application of Global Software Engineering
Best-practices of companies, succesfactors and failfactors from practice are an important focus in our research. Current research already makes clear how to deploy GSE in practice to avoid main pitfalls and problems. Issues around off-shoring and near-shoring of software development teams on the other side of the globe are part of this research. Furthermore the research focuses on making business-cases for outsourcing/off-shoring in such a way they can really be deployment in practice.

2. Technological support for distributed software engineering
Tools and technology that support developers in a decreased perception of distance. The 30-meter principle (T.J. Allen, 2007) showed that outside a 30-meter zone, unplanned informal interaction is reduced to a minimum. Establishing a virtual 30-meter is therefore the objective of this research.

3. Distributed Agile methods
We especially focus on agile development because in that discipline emphasis is put on informal communication, coordination and control. Distributed Scrum receives special attention. The most dominant reason to focus on distributed Scrum is because in practice it appears that the most common and dominant problems coming forward from distributed software engineering are directly tackled with distributed Scrum.

4. Follow-the-Sun software engineering
Within GSE it is feasible to work 24 hours on a software product, when work is transferred to other locations, making advantage of time differences. As such it is possible to work during daylight continuously but distributed around the globe. This form of GSE is about the most complex way to deploy. When tools and technology work for FtS, they are likely to be applicable elsewhere too. FtS-development can be considered as the ‘stress-test’ of GSE research.

5. Teaching GSE dynamics
The main challenge is to prepare our current student population for a career in which GSE will play an increasingly dominant role. Especially the dynamics of GSE are difficult to teach in class room settings. Research on this matter is therefore needed.